Whisper It: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer “Co-Op”

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The rumours are strong. That is like a strong smell, only on the level of ideas. Does that makes sense? No. But still our chums Eurogamer report: “Mass Effect 3 is strongly rumoured to feature a four-player co-op mode. Eurogamer understands this four-player, online-enabled co-op mode is “standalone” and features “competitive elements”.”

This co-op portion of the game is “said” not comprise a portion of “the” single-player campaign, and will be its own thing. But who is doing the rumouring? And why are they rumouring so hard? Is it because they are compensating for something? Eh? Stay tuned for more overheard fragments of data as they happen, Internet fans!

96 Comments

I am skeptical. I guess it would be alright if its done well, but somehow I doubt it can be done well without comprimising the single player portion in the realatively short time they’ve been working on ME3.

PS. i had also heard that John Walker secretly eats feathers in the bathroom. isn’t that wierd?

Mass Effect came out in November 2007, the sequel in January 2010. That’s roughly two years, two months. The time between 2 and 3 will be the same, give or take a week or two (assuming it doesn’t slip again).

Not that that really means anything, but ME2 didn’t feel rushed to me.

@Springy – Right, its the same amount of time. that’s kinda what worries me. that would obviously be enough time for another great single player game, but is it enough time for a great single player game AND a great co-op game?

Valve managed Portal 2 in roughly 2.5 years. If they can do it, almost anyone can… oh how much I wish that statement was true. If Bioware has become adept at their engine and can manage to pull together both would be incredible. As the saying goes, if Gabe Newell can do it 2 (adjust for valvetime), everyone else can do half as well.

I know they’ve promised enemy AI improvements, but while that’ll be great for the SP game if it lives up to that promise, I’m not sure I can see those improvements being on the scale of making co-op interesting.

Then again, is enemy AI ever really good enough to make co-op interesting?

Actually, it’d be interesting to have a closest-score-without-going-over mechanic for conversations: so everyone gets a random +/- 20 score, which is then added to their Paragon/Renegade score, and each option has a certain paragon/renegade-ness score as well. You pick your option, which is (hopefully) closest to the way you’re playing your character, and so does everyone else, then the person with the lowest difference between the target score and their “roll” wins. Like SWTOR, but with more incentive to roleplay rather than max out your Persuade stat if you want to dominate a conversation.

Mass Effect isn’t an rpg, no matter what Bioware claim. It is a shooter with rpg elements.

Adding co-op in theory should make it more of an RPG since it gives a real opportunity to create a character and roleplay with others to make a story. In practice the game will still be just a shooter.

Its not an RPG , its a shooter with Dialog choices and a basic level select.

If saying having dialog choices makes a game an RPG then that makes Monkey Island an RPG as well as Day Of The Tentacle (I think most people would say they are adventure games or point and click, not RPG)

I’ve been playing PNPRPG:s since -85, CRPG:s since -88 and LARP since -93 and I say ME2 is an RPG.
That makes you wrong and me old. I’m at least very sure it makes me old
But I’ll agree to call ME2 a story teller action game, if you agree to call D&D a tactical skirmish system with RPG elements.

This conversation always misses the fundamental point, which is that ME2 may be an RPG but it’s a terrible one judged by the standards of RPG’s. The RPG mechanics are the weakest parts of the game, from the minimalist skill system to the near total lack of weapon options to the god-awful mineral scanning. As a shooter with dialogue it’s a pretty great game, as an RPG it’s a shallow mess.

I don’t know, I think it depends on how we’re measuring RPG’ness. If it’s purely on mechanics then I’ll grant Vinraith’s point, but if we’re measuring creating a believable universe that you want to spend time in and explore, characters you want to spend time with and a plot you want to explore then I don’t thin k many games have done that better.

Computer game genres are defined by mechanics, RPG is no exception. Any other definition (something like “creating a believable world”) encompasses a wide variety of games that are clearly not RPG’s, rendering the genre label useless.

If we’re defining genre’s purely by mechanics then I’d argue RPG is already useless, given it covers Torchlight, Disciples, Fallout, Final Fantasy, WOW, Wizardry, Dragon Age… I could go on but you get the point.

We can either seize on one definition and decry all others as pretenders to the name, or we can just accept that RPG is a catch-all term which means whatever your pointing to at the time, much like Sci-Fi does.

I have learned to avoid definition discussions, because reality is not based on definitions, definitions are based on reality. So your definition can be right, but reality can disagree, that make you a fool.
What I was tryiing to say is that I fear the multiplayerification of Mass Effect may result in less Role Play elements removed in favor of pew pew pew pew. Maybe I sould have said that I fear the diablotification of Mass Effect.

Well I’d say most genre definitions in most mediums are just simple catch alls to try and communicate meaning to the other party, so are vague, imprecise, context dependent. What they are not is a reductive categorisation system.

I didn’t say it was meaningless. I said to define it purely mechanically isn’t particularly useful and that it covers a broad spectrum not a narrow one.

I’m here because:

1) Tei’s point was valid and doesn’t deserve to be deflected by “Mass Effect isn’t an RPG”
2) “RPG is a broad term but still a useful one” is a point I thought was worth making.
3) Arguments can be fun

The official RPS definition is “Guns & Conversation” game.
To quote the source:
“Jom: There are times where traditional points of reference break down and clever men are forced to invent clever descriptions to decide what is going on. This is happening to the shooter and RPG genres. Neither is really relevant to Mass Effect 2 in their traditional form, and yet this game is still made up from elements of both of them. This realisation caused us to propose a new genre: Guns & Conversation. G&C! – you can see it catching on? Right? Oh. Well, we are not clever men. But anyway, if you are playing this kind of game there’s going to be some shooting, and there’s going to be some talking. And that’s about it. There might be a bit of time in menu screens, but most of the stat and inventory tinkering is gone. I’m okay with that, I think. The Guns & Conversation genre has been too long coming, frankly. Now that it’s here, it’s good to see Bioware leading the way in melding both hiding behind waist-high scenery and saying either nice or nasty things to people with heads made of plastic into a single game.”link to rockpapershotgun.com

Sounds like something separate from the main game. Co-op missions with some sort of story running through them, L4D style, could be interesting. Though they’d need some way of making the conversation side work in a multiplayer environment. Without that, it’s just a “Guns and” game, and ME’s combat isn’t strong enough to hold up the experience on its own.

I played Baldur’s Gate as LAN co-op with my wife. It was a blast. It was a long time ago, so I’m not sure I’m remembering this right, but I don’t think we missed any NPC interactions. The two players just divided up control of the NPC party members. And yes, the person on the host computer did control all the dialogue, but with two computers in the same room, it wasn’t hard to discuss the situation before making a dialogue choice.

I have zero interest in co-op for Mass Effect though.. Wrong game for it;, especially if it’s just a combat-heavy side mission unconnected to the main game. The combat just isn’t that tactical or challenging.

@JKjoker: Yeah, I remember a few broken bits, but we still made it through the first game and sequels. Also Icewind Dale, which was simpler and therefore smoother. Co-op play in Neverwinter Nights wasn’t bad, either.

This was back in the dim dark pre-online-gaming days when it was amazing that LAN co-op or PvP worked at all. When it did work in certain games, like playing co-op through System Shock 2 (which was fun), it felt more like a happy accident than deliberate programming.

Hah, I’m actually playing through BG1 multiplayer with my girlfriend right now.

To clear up a few inaccuracies in posts above:
Whoever speaks to an NPC or gets spoken to controls the dialogue.
NPC control is divided up among the players – my girlfriend has her character, Branwen and Kivan at present, I have my character and Imoen.
Character development works exactly as you’d expect. You level up your own NPCs.
Inventory stuff all works just fine provided the host sets everyone to have leadership permissions. Without them, you can only see stuff on the NPCs you control.

Haven’t tried moving map with the non-host player so far.

In short, it works really well with one minor glitch – charmed/summoned creatures default to the host’s control, not the control of the player controlling the charmer or summoner. Also, getting the PCs to see one another can be tricky, I use LogMeIn Hamachi to make the networking a bit more reliable.

Perhaps at some historic unpatched point it was flakier, but BG1 multiplayer is very solid and works well, and none of the complaints made of it above are true. I would recommend it still as a LAN game.

Mass Effect 3 will be a shooter like the hugely succesfull Call of Duty franchise. There will be cutscenes for the roleplaying fans, but the main focus will be in multiplayer experience and kicking some alien ass!

I will not defend ME is an rpg because I think it is a blight on the name which will overall damage the genre. I will however defend ME on it not being able to be compare to Call of Duty, the only semblance of each other is that they both involve shooting people.

This sounds like it’d be fun but I don’t know if it’d really change how I played. In ME2 there were two different experiences for me: “running around and talking to people in places where people weren’t shooting at me” and “zoomed in on my gun scope with the time-slowing adrenaline buff on”. In neither case did my other party members really factor in.

Something akin to ye olde AvP multiplayer mode where it’s the players versus swarms of bugs could work. I guess they’d have to remove the pause effect, or at least allow you to move the gorram camera while in the action menu.

ME is fun, but not really because of the shooter bits – they were good enough in ME2 but nothing amazing. By contrast, playing ME with friends being able to drop-in co-op the squadmates would have been neat.

I suppose if it’s true, then it will be something like Mass Effect’s Pinnacle Station DLC, where you had to complete certain objectives on a given map, namely kill all the enemies or take hold of control points, but with other people this time. If so, don’t really see the point of that.

I miss the co-op of oldschool RPGs on the SNES where it wasn’t so much a touted “feature” as an option you could turn on if you wanted, ala FF6 or Secret of Mana. You know, assigning different controllers to different characters in the party. It had no bearing on the exploration or story bits, but in battle your friend could help out.

An option like that in ME would be fun, but a completely separate 4-player shoot ’em up? Why? Aren’t we all here for Commander Shepherd’s tale?

Secret of mana’s co-op implementation is one of my absolute favourites. That game was clearly designed with co-op in mind, as such having another player not only complemented but accentuated the already solid game mechanics. A co-op game should be a co-op game. A single player game should be a single player game.

Who are all these people playing co-op games? Are they school children? I just have to ask, because I don’t know anyone, as an adult, who sits around playing co-op games. Even in the rare case that the few friends you know who play videogames have the same platform and interest in the same genre of games, they’re unlikely to be available at and for the same times that everyone else is, because — you know — work, relationships, family, and other bullshit. When I see “co-op” advertised for a game, it just says to me “game content you’ll pay for but never use”.

Why in the name of Cthulu’s tentaclebeard are they putting multiplayer in a series intended for singleplayer only? The combat is fun, sure, but not THAT fun. I doubt it will work if at all in a multiplayer setting.

Why can’t I play alone? Play alone in my dark room? Totally separated from everyone? Secretly at the dead of night?
Why don’t they get, that playing games is like reading books for me? And reading together with others at the same time SUCKS!